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This weekend was pretty much one of my first major slip ups in quite awhile. Now I’m one of those people who do incorporate my favorite foods into my diet so I don’t get cravings much. With the exception of the very occasional craving for super horrible food from restaurants. Darn you B dubs with your delicious food! haha. But I know for me, my choice to eliminate fast food and restaurant food all together, as much as possible anyway, is the best choice for me. I don’t know about anyone else, but the less junk I have, the less I seem to crave it.

But back to this weekend. I just lost control starting saturday night. It started slow, a few chips and dip at a friends while watching TV. Despite knowing it would push me over my calorie goal without working out at all that day. * Insert facepalm here* Sunday evening being frustrated with my family and eating dinner with them despite knowing I shouldn’t have eaten much more that day, but I didn’t want to fight them anymore. A hot meal is always tempting. They eat so freaking late at night! I just can’t seem to wait. Then my sister bringing me my absolute favorite peanut butter and banana Coldstone ice cream. She was trying to being nice because she knew I was stressed about my neurobiology test today. In addition to having a freaky allergic reaction that day, I found myself binge eating while studying early into the morning.

And boy am I paying for it. I gained a grand total of 3lbs this weekend in the course of 2 really 1 1/2 days. I was 1lb away from the 180s. God I hate my metabolism sometimes. Because, when looking back, I didn’t portion control much, but I didn’t eat too horrible either. I’m just a little frustrated with myself for letting it happen. As well as knowing that normal people, could probably have eaten what I did, and maintained. =( I know my body isn’t theirs, and I need to accept it for what it is. But sometimes I just wish I could have a maintaining weight potential. I’m always loosing or gaining. Unlike my mother and sister who gorge themselves silly and still are so pretty and thin.

Reality Check Time:

Never, give up. This is a journey. Not a one time shot. There are downs to your ups, and this is mine. So even though I lost control this weekend, its no excuse to continue a downward spiral today. If anything its reason to hit the gym harder. To eat cleaner. So enough of this pity party and lets get back to it.

SUMMER: Recap and an explanation about what happened in the last post.

I’ve been away and my last post was extremely low. I suppose low is a good way to describe how my summer has been going. I started out with injuring a disk in my back causing significant nerve damage. This damaged manifested in losing a large chunk of muscle control in my lower back, thigh, calf and toe. Which basically pulled me away from working out and running. I was basically unable to get around, bend over, and deal with everyday chores. This did spark a lot of anxiety in me and depression which is something I struggle with.

Add that into coming home to a very negative household caused a lot of stress. And Basically I hit a depressed downward spiral and gave up. I just gained the majority of my weight I worked so hard to eliminate and have mixed feelings on it.

I went through physical therapy(PT) and got to a point that I was able to actually counsel the summer camp I traditionally counsel. Still going through PT and working to gain my strength back. Another thing directly after that was my family went to summerfest in WI which was a lot of fun. Camping and such. An 11 day festival with 9 venues and amazing artists was a blast but exhausting. I had two days and now I find myself here back in GR visiting a good friend. Convicted to write about…well everything.

Love Life: FLASHBACK. Back in December I started talking to this guy I went to high school with. Lets call him M. Just talking on the phone and getting to know each other more. Some shameless flirting later, I found myself with a giant crush. Despite everything in my past with R and falling so hard and being so hurt by him, I was absolutely shocked that I gained the crush for M so easily. He made it easy. He’s the sweetest guy and I can talk to him about anything. And not to say that I love him just yet, but he’s helped me believe that I could potentially love someone again. If not more so than I ever did R. Which is pretty great. We officially started dating March 31 (Easter) hah. So at the end of July almost 4 months for me and him. He’s wonderfully handsome and right now, he fits me perfectly. Yes there are some flaws we are working through them as a couple. I like him tons and tons.

Coming into the new school year I am setting goals before graduation.

1- Find good friends.

2-Get connected to the church more. Get connected to God more.

3-Finish my personal statement.Shadow more MDs

4- 4.0 a semester and up my GPA

5-Volunteer over 200 hours.

6-Take the MCAT

7-Lose 60lbs in 8months. I believe that is doable. Hard, but doable.Meaning working out constantly and a healthy diet.

8-Grow my relationship with M

9-Get better at my guitar/uke.

10-Love myself. I need it.

I WILL do these. Even if it kills me. I want this for myself more than anything. So there we go. These should all help me achieve what I want for getting into Med School and achieving what I want out of life. Someone made the comment about how society these days is about getting by, and we really should be loving where we are at. I want to love my life. These are the steps I am taking to do so.

Warning: This is an all over emotional rant. But its where I am at. My apologies if its a bit jumpy in the logic.

So, currently sitting in my room trying to remember when I decided to come home for summer. Also wondering WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME?! and I want to hit past me in the face. Financially I couldn’t afford to stay and school.Thats a fact. Factoid #2 is I don’t have a job here unlike back at school where I had 2. Eff. So I am actually stuck around the house. Fact #3 I HATE living with my family. My mother drives me crazy, my father is critical and I hate being around them. Fact #4 being around them constantly causes fights and ups my anxiety. Which indirectly affects my binge eating my stress levels and so on. Which leads me to my biggest fear.Gaining weight and being unhealthy. Oh wait thats my current reality and throw in lower self esteem thanks to my mother.

Living here, at home, with them makes me completely and utterly unhealthy. 100%. I’m beginning to realize a large portion of my unhealthy lifestyle and weight issues are thanks to my family. This realization, quite frankly, is pissing me off. Like what the hell? How was I ever supposed to do well with this atmosphere? Both my siblings have weight issues. I’ve tried time and time again to convince them to get the crap out of the house but they just won’t. They hold onto it and its slowly killing me. Literally. Obesity is one of the most avoidable causes of death and disease.

My father currently is recovering from a 2nd knee surgery which is partially from working hard labor but mostly being overweight. Though he won’t admit it. I just get angry looking at them. Like you did this to yourself and inadvertently, that will be me. I will be the one getting surgery because I can’t take the time to eat better.

I don’t have any clue what to do. I wish my mother realized I truly do have a binge eating problem. I have the hardest time resisting to indulge with it there ALL the time. Instead of indulging my father in what he wants she needs to stop it. Stop buying him oreos and apple pie and ice cream. Like effing christ. My eating habits are from them. This is WHY I had to work so hard. This is what I’m constantly fighting my weight and my cravings. Its why I didn’t have a clue what healthy eating was to begin with.

I just want to be normal. I want to be healthy. I don’t want to feel like I have to skip or eat a special separate dinner to eat with them. I just want to be comfortable in my own skin.

I feel so defeated. My weight has jumped insane amounts. I am past where I said I would never return. I just want to leave so bad, but I can’t. =/

Someone have any clue where to go from here? I feel so defeated. Guess I’ll always looks this way. I give.

Okay. I’ve been absent but life had gone nuts for quite a bit and with it went my weight.

EFF. Here we go again.

School/End Of Year

Through finals I was on the edge fighting for a lot of my grades. I had pretty much given up hope on organic but wasn’t going down without a fight. I kind of assumed I was going to have to retake it getting a possible C which does not help with my MD dreams. Somehow I kicked butt on the final and ended up with a B. A freaking B! Holy shit! I was praying for a B- but hot damn I did it. Got A in psychopathology and my research 499 and an A- in my cadaver dissection. A graduate course, which I am quite pleased with. Deans list baby! Med school here I come…I hope.

Life

I’m now home. The semester finished up I cleaned up and completed my RA duties. Won RA program of the year. Very proud of that. Said goodbye to my staff and am finally home. Love and hate being home all at once. My Mom drives me a little crazy and I’ve only been home for 5 days. I don’t have room for any of my clothes or things which is frustrating. But it’ll work out, I think. Still looking for a job. Set up a lot of shadowing opportunities this summer. 1 pediatrician 1 OBGYN and 1 hospitals and hopefully a podiatrist. Gotta get the experience in! I also want to get more involved in my home church and volunteer some more. Can’t wait!

Health

Here is my embarrassment. Through the past month/4 weeks I have gained roughly 15lbs. I know its horribly disgusting. Just grades had to come first. I didn’t have time to walk across the 1/2 mile campus there and back to go eat the salads. =/ It’s not that I’ve eaten all that bad, in addition I just haven’t had time to work out. Thats the frustrating part with my body. I feel like I gain weight so much easier than everyone else. Its not massive portions and its not extremely unhealthy. Its just not salads every day. Which is sort of disheartening. Its like, to be anywhere near normal do I have to really eat salads everyday for my body? I’m limiting calorie intake to 1300calories and still watching it…but I guess I wish I could maintain with that. I need to get over my pity party. Time to suck it up and eat rabbit food and exercise once again. Its my own fault my body is like this so here I am taking responsibility.

Love

ummm…so I’m dating someone? He is exactly everything I would never imagine dating but I like him. He’s got some bad habits (smoking ew) but I like him all the same. Met in h.s and just reconnected. I’ll keep you all posted.

Time to be religious about blogging and being accountable for my weight. Here we go summer!

I’ve been postponing this blog. I have gone on a major back slip. With the stress of midterms I have been gorging myself and eating disgustingly large amounts of food. I’m so embarrassed and regret it so much. A lot of my hard work over 3 weeks is gone again. I gained 7lbs or so. Its amazing how I gain about 2lbs every day which is an unfortunate truth to my body.

Tomorrow is a new day and I will win this fight. I will. I can’t loose and keep doing this to my body. I even feel bad and get sick feeling. Its time to change back to the lifestyle outlook. Not just every few weeks. I am setting a long term goal here. By the beginning of june ( a little over 3 months or so) I want to be 30lbs lighter. Thats 10lbs a month, a little over 3 lbs a week. If anything I’d rather try and fall short, than not try at all. I can do this. I have to do this. This is for me. I am important enough to make this effort and take the time for myself. Tomorrow church, homework, gym. Must eat healthy. I can’t wait!

I have officially lost 50lbs!!! Oh my gosh thats nuts! Its crazy to think I was carrying around all that extra weight. For every extra pound on your body that places 4lbs on your knees. I have released 200lbs on my knees. So I’ve been very steadily and rapidly loosing weight. I’ve chalked it up to eating clean and running every day as well as free weights every other day straight for two weeks. However, I am somewhat concerned because I feel the weight is coming off really fast which ISN’T normal to me. I lost 30lbs very very slowly. Granted I didn’t eat as clean then and I’ve been reading 80% is diet and 20% is the gym which would explain it a bit. My concern lies in the fact that I ALWAYS want to be healthy about my weight loss. I’ve looked over what I’m eating and its pretty well balanced as well as I am over calorie limits pretty frequently. I’m just working out to compensate. So I’m not anywhere near starving myself, I like food too much to do so. Also I’m a bit surprised because every now and then I’m eating small “bad” things like 3 mini Reesces peanut butter cups to treat myself. I can’t eliminate all chocolate forever, it only will make dieting harder! AT least for me it would. But here are some pictures. I am without a doubt smaller than I was in high school! I just have to keep going =]

Me summer 2011 probably close to my 235lb->summer 2012 after 30lbs-> Me now 50lbs lighter than the first!

Before Summer 2011- Weight roughly 235

After: Summer 2012- Weight roughly 205.5

Me now! Winter 2013 184.5lbs

I also finally have collar bones? I’ve never had them. Its just a start but I need to focus on the changes because lately I haven’t seen much of a difference between picture 2 above and now.

So after a decent-ish weekend of working out and such I decided to weigh myself to see if I got the week one drastic drop and I did. Yay! Its only been 3 days and I lost 1 lb. Granted its week one and I usually loose the most weight at this time I need to try to keep in mind that it won’t always be like this. To keep some perspective I reread my own weighing in on weigh-in post. I suggest it if you’re someone who tends to struggle with the number on the scale. Don’t worry, we all do.

I think my next post is going to be regarding cravings since I’m having them up to the yin yang today. Ugh. Week one for sure.

So I’ve been not writing for a while. I also had stopped loosing weight and working out. I had a rough semester a mix of having severe mono, getting over my ex, finding my place and way around school again. It was just one giant cluster F. I gained and lost and ultimately was able to pretty much maintain in the 195lbs range. But I decided its time to start caring about myself again. Being selfish and taking the time for myself.

I find that for me, setting short term goals and writing them down helps me.

1-Get back into the habit of eating “clean”

2-Exercise 4 days a week and go hard. If I’m not sore, I did it wrong. Possibly go again.

3- Get back to church. Which I’ve started some.

4-Stop procrastinating school!!! I’m the worst at this.

5-Be the best RA possible.

6-Be able to run a 9 minute mile

7-Be able to run a 5k without stopping.-yep, I lost all my hard work this summer. Gah.

But thats about it. 7 goals. I want to keep these for the next 5 weeks. So one week after my personal spring break. Here is to hopping this all works out.Sorry for this being so random if anyone is reading, I just needed this out of my head. Well, I’m off to the gym!

I hope you’re all doing amazing and I believe I owe you all a massive update!

Starting with the color run. My goodness is was awesome amazing colorful fun! I had a blast and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. The race itself wasn’t that hard because of so many people we had to slow our run down. There were a few times where I was pretty sure I could walk faster but I still was having a good time. It was fun to actually run with the girls since we all were running together. Joking and laughing. The energy of the crowd was insane. The course lapsed back on itself so people were screaming whoohoo and high-fiveing. It was a fantastic energy boost. Downtown Grand Rapids was insanely packed. But we got there and managed to leave in the “6th” wave and finished in less than 30minutes. The Paint Chaser girls are the loves of my life and I couldn’t have done it without them! Thank you Ladies.

What has been keeping me SUPER busy was RA training. I moved into my new place and hit R.A training in full swing. My dorm itself got moved to the graduate assistant room because of the university being so full. So now I have a full sized kitchen! =] Its a bit smaller, but its okay. Some highlights to this year’s RA training was doing the ropes course as well as my staff winning the annual R.A volleyball game. Its been a lot of fun! Other than those two things R.A training has been a lot of sitting, eat unhealthy food, and lectures so my weight has gained a bit. But I have managed to make some healthier choices in my options. Another really awesome thing we did was the President of my university hosts a dinner at his house for all the RA’s. The staff got all dressed up and went. Also, my staff is amazing this year! We all get along so well. Its nuts how great it is. To top it off my door decorations and bulletin boards are rocking to start out and I’ve met two of my residents. I am pumped but move in is actually monday (Oh my goodness!) and I really am not quite ready. But here goes nothing. Senior year here I come!

Church has been going okay. I’ve had to miss my “Go groups” and church itself. Hopefully I will be going tomorrow as well. I also am working into my mission trip stuff. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later. In the fall I may be hosting a “go group”. I’m really nervous about it but I think it’ll be great. I also, need to finalize my classes for the next year or so. But that has been put on the back burner until move in passes. I also have a test monday morning with the possibility of a new job. Wish me good luck on that one!

Hopefully I am going home this weekend to get few things from home and return a few others. See my family before things get a little too crazy.

So today started out with a surprise! I have been dropping weight rather quickly(Which never happens) and yes I have been eating enough and yes I have been working out and doing this all the healthy way. I measure in the mornings to avoid water weight. But according to the scale in 5 days I have lost about 6 lbs. I’m thinking its a mix of when I was eating “bad” I have been eating the better choices of the bad. Does that even make sense? As well as I dropped to 193 the week before gaining again. So I’m wondering if that has anything to do with it. Like its easier to move weight that didn’t exist before? I don’t know if there is any truth to that. As well as I think I’m going to get my period next week so maybe thats why my weight has been so stubborn and suddenly shifted? Sorry, thats probably TMI but oh well. I’m just hoping it stays off.

However, it puts me at the end of my summer as 40lbs lost. HOLY CRAP! I NEVER ever thought I could do that, ever. Not in my wildest dreams. I’m now out of the obesity BMI standards and 40lbs lighter. yay!!!! I’m so excited. I am like dancing around the room excited. I still have a long way to go, but its still an improvment.

My work out today was a bit hard to start. I started on on a walk run treadmill finishing a mile. Then ab work and then decided I would not accept such a crappy run. So I hopped onto the treadmill again and rock a 2.1 walk run. HECKS YES! Finally something to feel good about. Even though it was somewhat slow, I just am happy everything worked out.

I had oatmeal for early breakfast, then a breakfast sandwich later because I got up way early and was super hungry. Went to class. Had pretzels as a snack. Went to work. Worked out. Staff meeting, and now I am about to go out with my staff for team trivia at a pizza place. I have decided I will indulge just a SMALL amount only.

Thoughts after dinner:

Didn’t do so hot. My boss bought a ton of appetizers for the table and that way no one had to buy. But because of that I just couldn’t say no. I had a potato skin, 4 cheese sticks, chips with salsa and avocado/artichoke dip. Crap crap crap. So glad I did the extra time at the gym. Tomorrow is my day off. So I have to get a few things done, then I just need to go hard at the gym. Laundry. Organize and clean to move.